Just Kids
by thermodynamic
Summary: It takes Soda five minutes to fall in love with Sandy. Falling out of it takes him considerably longer.
1. 1965

_So he tries to pacify her_

_Because what's inside her, it never dies_

— He Can Only Hold Her, Amy Winehouse

* * *

Dallas nudges him hard with the toe of his boot to his calf; Soda knows it probably left a stain of mud and horseshit on the leg of his good jeans, but you don't mention Dallas's general lack of consideration unless you're itching for a fight. "Look at that piece of ass."

Soda scans the sea of cars at the Dingo with one hand over his eyes, shielding them from the neon lights, and lets out a low whistle once he finds his target. Ain't nobody really here to watch some movie. "That piece of ass is Tim's ex, you're outta your damn mind."

Yeah, he can't deny that Bonnie Jacob is fine, prettier than most of the girls who flirt with him at the DX counter or sidled up to him in the halls at school— she's got dark eyes and hair like Audrey Hepburn, but the rest of her, it's all Marilyn. But rumor has it she messed around on Tim when he was in the pen and he doesn't need that kind of trouble, he's heard enough about it from Dallas to live vicariously through him.

Dallas gives him a liquid shrug, like Tim's wrath is something he's never feared, and it probably isn't. "He ain't exactly fixin' to fight for her honor, man, they been done for months. 'Sides—" this time it's an elbow to the ribs— "wouldn't be me gettin' decked."

"Hell nah, not my type, sounds more like yours." The tough, loud kind of girls, spilling drunk out of car doors like their bones are made of water, eyeliner smeared down their faces— Dallas prefers female versions of himself, is too damn narcissistic to want anything else.

"Only type you got lately is your right hand," Dallas says with his usual tact, but there's some genuine concern there and Soda hates hearing it. He wants to start acting like his old self again, shed the sadness and insecurity like snakeskin; summer stretches out long and endless in front of him, sharp grief faded into a horrible, numb monotony, and the thrill of chasing broads on a Friday night isn't doing much to help. He should've gone out with Steve instead, doesn't take a lot of emotional energy to play a hand of poker or nick a couple hubcaps. "Think about it this way, you can finally get back at Tim for stealin' Mom's watch."

He already broke Tim's nose and stole it back, but he flips Dallas the bird and walks over to her anyway. Bonnie's standing around a '62 Mustang with a few of her girls, none of them distinct enough for him to differentiate between them, no man in sight; there's a faded blue star painted on her left cheek, glittering every time she laughs with her mouth wide open. What the hell. Why the hell not. He's not out here looking for love tonight, and neither is she.

"Hey, baby." He leans over, taps her on the shoulder, grins like grease spreading across a skillet when she turns around to face him. "How'd you like to wrap them pretty pink lips around my—"

She punches him in the arm with more force than he thought a 5'2 broad was capable of; he actually takes half a step back, rubs the spot where her fist connected a little. He supposes he should count himself lucky it wasn't the solar plexus, or worse, the 'nads. "Hey, hotshot, what would you do if some guy talked to your sister like that?"

His response is instantaneous. "I'd knock his teeth out."

She smiles the tiniest bit and leans close to his ear, close enough that he can smell the rum and coke she's been downing from the flask in her hand. "So you better hope I don't tell my brother and get him to knock out yours, pretty boy."

He could go for the jugular and mention Tim, that she doesn't have much of a right to demand she be treated like a lady, but the whiskey he swigged on the drive and the blunt he and Dallas shared has made him too lazy and he likes Wayne too much to keep pushing the issue. "You got any single friends?

"None I'm willin' to throw out to you and your crew, y'all are like dogs on raw meat, 'specially Dally Winston." She tosses her hair over one shoulder, puts a hand on her hip, for the benefit of her girls. "Get lost, hood, we're busy."

He laughs a little behind his teeth and considers stumbling back towards Dallas in defeat, considers getting back in the truck entirely and driving home before Darry notices he split; he sounds like a caricature of himself, one of the dumbest Brumly boys trying to get his dick wet for the first time. Getting turned down by a complete slut like her, shit, he never thought he'd see the day.

"Hi."

She's pretty like one of the china dolls Jasmine used to play with as a kid— soft blonde curls he can clock as natural, cheeks rosy without blush— but her poodle skirt brushes the tops of her knees while all the other girls are wearing tube tops and shorts in the sticky Oklahoma summer, and he wonders if she's religious or something, real Baptist. God knows he doesn't need that kind of trouble, either from a broad who won't put out before the altar or her shotgun-toting daddy.

"Hi," he says back, intrigued enough to keep this going for a little bit, but lights up the rare smoke so he doesn't look _too_ intrigued. "Ain't seen you 'round here before, baby, where'd you spring from?"

"I'm Sandra, Sandra Thomas," she says like she's introducing herself at the front of the class, all it's missing is her sticking her hand out for him to shake. "We're the same grade at school... I just don't come to drive-ins much."

"Probl'y not 'cause you don't get invited."

He smirks at her, maybe the first genuine one since his parents died; she gives him a shy smile back, like a flower unfurling in the early morning sun, and ducks her head. "My stepdaddy, he's real strict, he don't want me out at night." The smile morphs into something entirely different, fanged. "Well, fuck him."

"Them's dirty words outta such a nice mouth," he says, his throat rough and dry from the nicotine, and struggles against the urge to cough. He barely ever smokes, he doesn't like how much it reminds him of his mother. "Best part of bein' an orphan: ain't no one tryna get me home before curfew."

He didn't want to wait for her to bring it up, like a sword hovering above his head in every conversation with everyone who wasn't there the night of the accident, so he cuts the tension himself. She puts a hand on his forearm, genuinely more comforting than flirtatious. "I'm real sorry."

"You don't wanna talk about my parents, do you, doll?" He tries to make it sound teasing and instead it comes out like a warning shot. "Shit, we don't have to talk at all."

(Darry, back when things had just fallen apart with Judy and he was out playing the field again, was the patient type; he never would've been so direct with a girl whose panties weren't already halfway down her legs, much less one who approached him all of five minutes ago, it's the chase that thrills him and not the capture. Soda got all of his daddy's patience, which is to say: none.)

She steps closer to him; that's all the motivation he needs to press her up against the car, cup her hip with one hand to see how she reacts to it, and for the first time in four months he isn't thinking about anything except the warm slide of her mouth and the tacky sweetness of her cherry lipgloss. When she pulls back to undo a button on her blouse, he knows he clocked her right: no matter how her stepdaddy tries to dress her up, this broad is as easy as it gets.

After a couple minutes of clumsy kissing, thumbing her nipple through the skimpy lace of her brassiere, he slides a hand up her skirt (not easy, he has to fumble around a little). Her panties are damp, and he can guess it's probably not just with sweat; Dad's been telling him since he was thirteen to always keep a rubber in the console, so he's all set in that department. "You wanna get out of here?" he whispers into the shell of her ear. "Take this up a notch?"

She doesn't even bother to tell Bonnie where she's going before she gets into his passenger seat. Doesn't take any convincing to get her into the backseat, either, once he's driven them up towards Lover's Lane.

"You gonna brag to all your friends 'bout this?" she asks once they're done, settling her skirt back over her thighs; shit, she's even got a cross around her neck, he hadn't noticed until now. The intensity of her stare startles him, like a look you'd get from a feral wolf before it tore your throat out, but it vanishes so quickly he wonders if he didn't imagine the whole thing.

"Nah, I don't kiss and tell." Actually, he's downright renowned for just that in bull sessions— he's even fucked some of the girls he's claimed to— but all of a sudden, it seems like the more mature thing to say, like he's alchemized from a boy into a man in the span of a few seconds. "Don't worry 'bout it none... I'll drive you home."

"I've never done that before." He pulls a lukewarm beer out of the console and she takes a swig once he pops the tab, sloshes it around her mouth like disinfectant; the familiar numbness is creeping over him again, something right on the border of embarrassment. "Bonnie, she told me to just get it over with, quit waitin' for Mr. Right, y'know? But I don't feel any different."

"The earth didn't move for you, huh?" He's surprised to hear it, that some neighbor boy or kid at camp hadn't had his way with her by now, a pretty girl like that; she must be at least sixteen, if she's in his grade. "Well, guess I'll tell you somethin' too— I ain't never had a steady."

"Trust me, I heard." The corner of her mouth twitches up. "You're real popular... half the girls at school wish you'd give them your class ring, 'specially now that you've dropped out."

"You want it?"

He's lonely and impulsive and more than a little drunk. It's a lethal combination.

She sputters a laugh, drinks some more of the beer; he wishes he'd picked up better than Pabst Blue Ribbon, worn a T-shirt that didn't have sweat stains at the pits tonight. "You don't know the first thing about me, I can't have been that good."

"Been feelin' strange since my mama and daddy died," he admits, glad the light in the car is too dim for her to get a clear look at his face. "Sick of sleepin' around with all them girls... they're just more people who end up walkin' out of my life."

He couldn't tell that to anyone else, not even to Ponyboy when they're sprawled on their mattress at night and get more honest in the dark— he can't really tell anyone much. But she doesn't judge him, doesn't call him a pussy or nothing, and then he wonders if maybe, he could tell her worse, thoughts that both disgust and entice him in turn. About how much he likes being able to stay out as late as he pleases every night, come home in whatever state he comes home in, without any real fear of consequences. About how he's pretty sure that the guy in the eighteen-wheeler wasn't the only drunk one driving that night, or else Darry would've let him see the autopsy report.

About how sometimes, when he wakes up at six A.M. in a cold sweat and then remembers he never has to go to school again, he feels a sagging, terrible relief that his mama is dead.

"Okay." She takes a deep breath and agrees, just like that; he hadn't really expected her to, and the new development is as shocking as it is welcome. "Okay, why not."

"Hold up." He sweeps a lock of hair behind her ear, out of her perfectly heart-shaped face; she shivers like she had an electric current go through her. "Sandra's awful stiff, ain't it? You look more like a Sandy to me."

Her eyes are real, real blue. Deep enough to drown in.

* * *

This is going to be a two-shot, I think?


	2. 1970

I'm sorry I did this to Soda. Really. I am.

* * *

When he sees her, he swears he's tripping, the universe can't _possibly_ be fucking with him this bad. He's sitting on a park bench, his plug's twenty minutes late, and he swears another twenty minutes is going to make him bust this guy's nose in once he finally shows; he could be on a soaring high right now, trashed enough that the thoughts beating around his mind can fade into a smooth smear of grease, not matter at all. He hasn't had a hit in three days, his desiccated tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth, if he stops counting each blade of grass in front of him he starts to think there's wasps burrowing into his skin again. Lord, he's— he's been through enough.

But he can't forget her, she's seared into his memory as much as the gook who beaned him on the head with a rock— her hair like light streaming through a glass of whiskey, her china-blue eyes, even the curve of her ass under her long coat. He wrestles with whether or not he should say anything to her— he prefers to live in an eternal present these days, all sound and color and flash— but she settles the question by approaching him, her lips slightly parted. "God, Soda..." She's cut her hair into a more sensible style than those long ringlets she had as a teenager, though she's only twenty-two, _fuck_, how are they both only twenty-two; she rubs her eye, smearing mascara under it. "I never thought I'd see you again."

Thought, or hoped? She's shocked by how taut his skin is pulled over his cheekbones, by the ugly sore on the front of his scalp, he can tell— she still looks so neat and clean, like her pregnancy and exile were just a blip on the radar, a forgettable episode in the success story of her life. He hasn't changed his clothes in a week; he picks at a hole in the elbow of his sweatshirt, at the grimy skin it reveals.

"Sandra," he says with the briefest of nods, the ice in his voice palpable. He supposes that's still better than 'Slutty Sandy', Steve's little nickname that practically drove her out of school. "Been a while, huh?"

"Really has been." She's got balls, he'll give her that; he can fault her for a lot of things, and has, but never for being a coward. "My mama wanted to see Missy— my sister's gonna be graduating high school, too, thought I'd stop by."

She stares at him like nothing's changed in the last five years, like she's sixteen again and sitting on the hood of his car at Jay's, waiting to hear about what broads he batted off at the DX and how he's fixing to get a raise any day now. "I was in Nam," he says, the place where his life began and ended, though she probably could've guessed. "Came back. Been here ever since."

"Soda, Lord, are you _homeless_ now?" She doesn't bother to tiptoe around the question, and he can't even bring himself to be offended by it— all he's missing at this point is a paper cup to shake in front of her face. "You could go to the VA—"

"Nah, not anymore, I'm crashin' with my buddy Clint." He's not willing to elaborate about their not-entirely-legal relationship, she wouldn't understand if he did. Of course he'd suck Clint's dick for smack. He'd burn Clint's entire house down for smack. "And don't make me laugh, talkin' bout the VA. They couldn't organize a band-aid distribution over there, much less fix my _traumatic brain injury._"

"What about your family, y'all were so close—"

"Darry's wife walked out on him, Jasmine just had Curly Shepard's baby, Ponyboy ran away with his boyfriend to California— they got enough of their own problems right now." He enjoys the way her eyes widen a little too much. "Last I heard, anyway. Ain't none of them talkin' to me no more."

"Why not?"

Slowly, he rolls up his sleeve, and she recoils from his track-marked arm like he's one of the snakes his dad used to spray off the porch with a hose. "How's Miami?" he drawls, leaning against the back of the bench.

"It's fine, I guess." She snaps back to her usual composed self pretty quickly, he has to hand it to her. "Humid... I'm glad I'm out of there during hurricane season, it can rain somethin' fierce." She sits down beside him, but far enough away that their thighs don't touch. "Lots of Cubans, they all came up in lifeboats after Castro took over and stole their property. They make some mean tamales."

He doesn't even know who Castro is, and he's not sure if he cares enough to ask. A question he does care about, though, climbs up his throat and comes out with a crack he hasn't heard since he was thirteen— he's never been much of one for subtlety. "You got yourself another man?"

"No, I wanna focus on my daughter— _Missy_, you better stay where I can see you," she calls at the jungle gym, in a voice so insistent and shrill you turn around to look for your dead mother. The kid's cute in an unremarkable little girl way, pink bows in her dark hair, looks like her deadbeat daddy; he got drafted during the lottery in '69, died a few months later, and Soda wishes he'd taken less pleasure at the news. "I went to typing school, I'm a secretary now. Don't need nobody takin' care of us."

"A real modern woman, huh?" He never would've let a wife of his work, back when they were an item, never shut up about how he'd keep her at home and look after her— his daddy cringed every time he remembered that his mama had had to waitress while he was in the pen. Was willing to run stolen car parts, even, to make that little dream come true. But she's not anyone's wife now, and especially not his.

She lets a smile flicker across her face like a lightbulb that's burning out. "You haven't changed a bit, have you."

"Oh, darlin', I came back all changed, didn't you know?" He tries to sound menacing and lands on desperate and longing. "I ain't the same no more."

"No, you haven't." She chooses her next words like she's pulling out a hidden dagger, stabbing him right through. "You're still trapped in '65, God help me—" She stutters out a laugh. "We were just two dumb kids. You wanted a replacement mama and I wanted out of my stepdaddy's house, is all, don't romanticize it— you used me and I used you."

"Baby, don't flatter yourself." He's seen broads die before. He doesn't care so much about destroying one. "You really think you're tellin' me something I didn't already know? You really think I'm still hung up on you? At least the whore I went to in Saigon never pretended she didn't see other clients— and told me her price upfront."

"_Whore_ is the worst thing you can call a woman, huh? You're gonna have to try a lot harder than that to hurt me, at this point." She puts a hand on his, her fingers cool against his rough, callused palm; he doesn't pull away. "And you've never been much of a liar."

He thought that his life was already as pathetic as humanly possible, but maybe only now has he realized the futility of holding on to any more pride, any more delusions of self-respect. He's a druggie on a park bench and he hasn't showered in weeks and he's not even sure if she's real or yet another ghost, bringing him to reckoning. "You want me to admit it? Okay, Sandy, okay. You're the only woman I ever loved." He laughs, on his knees, begging for a mercy that no amount of smack will ever give him. "Ain't that the saddest fucking thing you ever heard?"

Then he kisses her. Jesus, she's like a bronco. He never wanted to get off.


End file.
